Tag Archives: new concepts

From individual to individual

Posted on by PalangL

Speciesism and homocentrism are the external manifestations of patterns in thinking that deny animal intelligence, and instead overvalue human intelligence. Humans are mostly behaving contractualist, unpredictable, unreliable, unfair, … and the list could go on in pretty negative terms. I wonder why that is the case, and I think it does not have to be that way.

I think it is possible for a human to be ‘animal intelligent’, to be non-contractualist, predictable, fair, tolerant, loving, … and that list could go on in positive terms. From my experiences with animals I learned about the possibility of ‘animal intelligence’:  The animals I have lived with truly were my best friends.

I think for a person who is truly nonspeciesistic in his/her thoughts and critical about homocentrism  it should be technically possible to really make the shift and start to become a better individual than what humans have per definition been so far, and even prided themselves with.

The time of human intelligence is over for me.

I am glad I defend animal rights from a standpoint of true ‘animal independence’ (of any human paradigm: biology, ethology, philosophy, religion … ).

***

Fragmentary thoughts:

The border around the castle ‘HUMAN’ is the one of scientifical categorizing. Within the castle we claim to be ‘complete’.

BIOLOGICAL HIERARCHISM ALWAYS PUTS HUMAN ‘OBJECTIVITY’ ON TOP OF WHAT IT DENIES THE OTHER SPEICIES: THAT IS ON TOP OF ANIMALS’ OBJECTIVITY

How can absolute objectivity be captured? With which parameters to measure against? Humans’ objectivity claim relies on subjective interests.

Ethical behaviour is one of the components taken out of the frame of an allround objectivity.

Animals get denied for their actions to be viewed as not insinctual.

Subsequently the VALUES of behaviour get ruled out from being within the ethcial scale of social actions between the species, etc.

A term such as ‘ethical’ desribes something that is existent, it’s not an idea in itself – otherwise it would not exist in the correlations…

Zum Holokaust- und Genozidvergleich in der Tierrechtsdiskussion

Posted on by PalangL

Die zerstörende Gewalt. Der Überlaufeffekt oder die Einmaligkeit in der Vorkommnis von Gewalt?

Zum Holokaust- und Genozidvergleich in der Tierrechtsdiskussion

Vorab: Braucht die Situation des Mensch-Tier-Verhältnisses einen Vergleich zu menschlich intraspezifischenen Situationen zur Hervorhebung von moralischer Relevanz? Wenn nicht, wozu dann die Genozidvergleiche in bezug auf die Situation des Verhältnisses menschlich-destruktiven Verhaltens gegenüber nichtmenschlichen Tieren?

Das Hauptargument, das gegen Genozidvergleiche vorgebracht wird, liegt im Punkt der Unantastbarkeit der Würde des Menschen. Eine ausschließliche Zurückführung auf den Begriff der Würde, kann, als ethisches Kriterium, aber nicht zur Ableitung einer einseitigen moralischen Gewichtung angeführt werden, ohne dass dabei eine Abwertung der Problematik der Gewalthandlungen gegen nichtmenschliche Tiere vollzogen wird.

In der Unantastbarkeit der Würde des Menschen und dem Problem der Verbrechen gegen die Menschenwürde (gegen die Menschheit oder einen Menschen) liegt keine zwangsläufige ethische Implikation im Bezug auf das Verhältnis des Menschen zu seiner Außen- oder Umwelt, die zu einer allgemeinen Begründbarkeit von Gewalt gegenüber nichtmenschlichen Tieren führbar wäre oder diese Formen von Gewalt ausdrücklich und in jedem Fall sanktionieren würde.

Der Begriff der Würde kann, gesehen vom Standpunkt der Meinungsfreiheit, auch nicht strikt in seiner Gebundenheit reduziert werden, ohne dass man dabei das Recht auf freie Meinungsäußerung verletzen würde. Dass heißt, dass eine Auffassung eines Menschen über das Vorhandensein der Würde der nichtmenschlichen Tiere – solange er dadurch keinem Menschen schadet, oder Menschen oder einem Menschen dadurch Gewalt antut – in den Bereich seiner Gedankenfreiheit oder seiner freien Meinungsauffassung fällt.

Menschen werden auch als Opfer und auch als Täter als Würdewesen betrachtet, deren Würde man in den Fällen von Morden und Genoziden brechen wollte; zumindest wurde dies in der Menschheitsgeschichte immer wieder versucht.

Tieren wurde in der Menschheitsgeschichte von keiner Gesellschaft eine Würde einer Unantasbarkeit ihres Tierseins zuerteilt. Damit ist die Besonderheit der Tragweite ihrer Opferposition nicht problemlos mit derer menschlicher Opfer zu vergleichen.

In jeder Situation, in der ein Gewaltverübender ein Opfer schafft, wird man in der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Problem oder dem Fall, Parallelen zu anderen Gewaltsituationen ziehen. Bei Gewalt an sich, unabhängig von der dadurch betroffenen „Angriffsfläche“ oder dem geschaffenen Objekt von Gewalt, kann man vermuten, dass die Motivationen (Destruktivitätswillen, -bereitschaft, gewaltbereite Eigenbezogenheit, Aggression) im Täter übergreifend ähnlich strukturiert sein können, auch weil das letztendliche Ziel oder intendierte Ergebnis von Gewalt: der Mord, die Tötung, d.h. die Zerstörung eines Opfers ist.

Nun verhält es sich aber so, dass die Frage, warum ein Täter sich ein spezifisches Opfer oder eine spezifische Opfergruppe sucht, ganz unterschiedliche Gründe in sich birgt. Auch ist die konkrete Qualität oder Struktur von Gewalt ein maßgeblicher Faktor, der auf die zugundeliegenden Ursachen von Gewalt und die spezifische Gewaltpsychologie zurückschließen lässt.

Produziert gegalt gegen Tiere, Gewalt gegen Menschen? Wenn nicht, warum bestehen dennoch Zusammenhänge in der Gewaltpsychologie

Die Unterscheidungen im Täter-Opfer Verhältnis zwischen potenziellen Opfern, und die Überlappungsmöglichkeiten in der Gewaltbereitschaft ihnen gegenüber, läge in der Frage des sogenannten Spillover-Effekts (Überlaufeffekts):

Die Frage ist, wenn ich dem einen Opfer etwas antue, bin ich dann automatisch auch einem oder mehreren anderen potenziellen Opfern gewaltbereit gegenüber?

Und, dem gegeüberliegend: hat das eine Opfer von Gewalt automatisch dadurch, dass es zum Gewaltopfer wurde, etwas mit einem anderen Opfer einer Form gewaltbereiter Handlung grundlegend gemein, außer dass beide in einer Position des Opfers sind? Liegt irgend etwas auf der Seite des Opfers, das die Gewaltbereitschaft eines Täters auf sich zieht?

Robert Nozick hat die Frage des sogenannten Spillovers vor dem Vordergrund des Mensch-Tier Verhältnisses in der Form beschrieben:

‘[…] Manche sagen, dass Leute nicht so handeln sollten, da solche Handlungen sie brutalisieren und sie die Wahrscheinlichkeit bei der Person erhöhen, das Leben anderer Personen zu nehmen (wir können hinzufügen “oder andererweise zu verletzen”); allein aus der Freude daran. Diese Handlungen, die moralisch nicht an sich in Frage zu stellen sind, sagen sie, haben einen unerwünschten moralischen ‘spillover’ (Überlaufeffekt). (Dinge wären dann anders, wenn es keine Möglichkeit für solch einen ‘spillover’ geben würde – zum Beispiel für die Person, die von sich selber weiß, dass sie die letzte Person auf der Welt ist.) Aber warum sollte es da solch einen ‘spillover’ geben? Wenn es an sich völlig richtig ist, Tieren in irgendeiner Weise etwas anzutun, aus irgendeinem Grund, welchem auch immer, dann, vorausgesetzt eine Person realisiert die klare Linie zwischen Personen und Tieren, und behält dies in ihrem Kopf während sie handelt, warum sollte das Töten von Tieren dazu neigen, sie [die Person] zu brutalisieren und die Wahrscheinlichkeit erhöhen, dass sie [andere] Personen verletzen oder töten könnte? Begehen Metzger mehr Morde? (Als andere Personen die Messer in ihrer Nähe haben?) Wenn es mir Spaß macht einen Baseball fest mit einem Baseballschläger zu schlagen, erhöht dies in bedeutender Weise die Gefahr, dass ich dasselbe mit jemandens Kopf tun würde? Bin ich nicht imstande dazu, zu verstehen, dass sich Leute von Basebällen unterscheiden, und verhindert dieses Verständnis nicht den ‘spillover’? Warum sollten Dinge anders sein im Fall von Tieren. Um es klar zu sagen, es ist eine empirische Frage ob ein ‘spillover’ stattfindet oder nicht; aber es besteht ein Rätsel darüber, warum es das tun sollte.’ (1)

Diese Unterscheidung wird im Falle von nichtmenschlichen Tieren in auffallend deutlicher Weise vollzogen (Speziesismus). Ein Tier physisch zu schädigen oder zu zerstören, es zu töten, verhält sich im Rahmen unserer Gesetze als Sachbeschädigung, nicht als Körperverletzung oder Mord; während das Opfer-werden beim Menschen durch soziale, ethische, religiöse und gesetzliche Konstrukte eine andere Bewertung erhält.

Im Bezug auf Genozide kann man also sagen, die Menschen, die zum Opfer wurden, wurden vor diesem Hindergrund betrachtet, bewusst zum Opfer gemacht. Sie wurden bewusst aus dem ethischen und gesetzlichen Rahmen gewaltsam hinausbefördert.

Anders verhält sich die Situation der nichtmenschlichen Tiere in ihrer Rolle im Rahmen der spezisitischen und homozentrischen menschlichen Beurteilung. Wie schon gesagt gilt die Körperverletzung nichtmenschlicher Tiere nicht oder kaum als „Verletzung“, da die ethische Klassifizierung nichtmenschlicher Tiere, deren Leidenskapazitäten und damut auch deren Würde, bislang nicht mit im Rahmen der Verpflichtungen ethischen Sozialverhaltens ansiedelt. Wobei wir es hierbei tatsächlich mit einem neuen Komplex der Ethik zu tun hätten, dem Interspezies-Sozialverhalten. (2)

Die ganze anthropologische Konstellation einer homozentrisch ausgerichteten Welt, muss in ihrer Konkretheit untersucht und überdacht werden. Analogsetzungen reichen nicht, um hier zu einer ethisch-moralischen Lösung zu gelangen. Wegen der konkreten Beschaffenheit, aus der sich die diskriminatorische Haltung gegenüber der autonomen Bedeutung nichtmenschlicher Tiere zusammensetzt – aus dem Grund der ganz speziellen Form von Gewalt in diesem Fall – kann man keine ausreichende Analogie festmachen, um Ursachen besser verstehen zu können und diese Art der Manifetation von Gewalt (eben der gegen nichtmenschliche Tiere) zu bekämpfen. Damit bleibt aber auch der Genozid am Menschen ein vorwiegend gesondert zu behandelndes Phänomen.

Ausschließlich der Vergleich der Gewaltbereitschaft beim Menschen lässt Parallelen in den Täterpsychologien entdecken. Das hat mit dem jeweiligen Opfer aber nicht unmittelbar etwas zu tun. Warum „jemand“ zum Opfer wird, hängt mit schwer zu ergründenden psychologischen Ursachen auf Seiten des Täters zusammen. Wenn, als stereotypes Beispiel, ein betrunkener Mann einen anderen im Affekt wegen einer banalen Streitigkeit tötschlägt oder eine Frau Opfer einer Vergewaltigung wird, liegt in beiden Fällen zum einen der Aspekt der Gewaltbereitschaft des Täters vor, zum anderen aber wird ein Opfer aus völlig verschiedenen Motivationen heraus gewählt. Oder: als „Hexen“ im Mittelalter als solche klassifiziert und gefoltert wurden, lag eine andere Motivation zugrunde als bei Folterungen im islamischen Gewaltregime des Iran oder wiederum bei den Folterungen Oppositioneller in der Militätdiktatur Pinochets in Chile.

Der Umstand dessen, Opfer geworden zu sein, also des Verletztwordenseins des Opfers in seiner Würde als menschliches Individuum selbst, hat niemals Rechnung für die Tätermotivation zu tragen. Man kann die Gewaltmotivation nicht hauptsächlich über die Position oder Eigenschaften des Opfers ableiten, da das Opfer nur im indirekten Zusammenhang in ein Gewaltvergehen und in die Gewalt generell eingebunden wird. (Dabei sollte man nicht vergessen: es gibt keine ethische Grundsatzlegitimierung zur Gewalt, außer derer der Selbstverteidigung oder des Schutzes. Am deutlichsten ist die indirekte Einbindung eines Opfers in der Anwendung von Gewaltmitteln zur Erzielung politischer, ideologischer oder religiöser Macht.)

Ebenso würde man keinen direkten Vergleich zwischen der Strategie z.B. der Hexenprozesse zu der Struktur der Nazigewalt gegen ihre Opfer ziehen, weil die Komplexität der Formen von Gewaltbereitschaft in den spezifischen Fällen anders erklärt werden müssen.

Die Frage der Ursachen, der Psychologie des Täters und die Fragen der Gewaltstruktur sind maßgeblich für die Erklärung über die Motivation von Gewalt und ihrer Formation. Das einzige was eine generelle Schnittmenge darstellt, zwischen allen Formen der Gewalt, ist die Gewalt selbst.

Gewalt hat Ursachen und Folgen. Die Folgen müssen in einem differenzierten Verhältnis zu den Ursachen analysiert werden, da die Ursachen oft allein dem Täter (besonders auffallend im Fall von Persönlichkeitsstörungen (3)) oder einer Tätergruppe zugeordnet werden können, und die Folgen aber die konkrete (von Täter gewollte) Einbindung des Opfers in die Gewaltpsychologie des Täters anbelangen.

Das was nun die menschliche Gesellschaft nichtmenschlichen Tieren gewaltsam antut, braucht einen eigenen Begriff der dem Sachverhalt gerecht wird. Die Bezeichnung „Holocaust“ sollte als Bezeichnung klar umrissen bleiben: Das Wort an sich bezeichnete in religiösen oder rituellen Kontexten die überbleibende Asche oder vollständige Verbrennung eines Tieropfers! Das Wort hat heute die uns allen bekannte Bedeutung im Bezug auf den Menschenmord, vor allem an den Juden durch die Nationalsozialisten im Dritten Reich. Man hat bezüglich der Gefahr von Atomwaffen und den Abwurf der Atombombe auf Hiroshima auch von einem ‚nuclear holocaust’ gesprochen, und das Englische ‚holocaust’ wurde im angelsächsischen Sprachgebrauch häufig als Synonym für den Begriff Genozid – den Massenmord an Menschen durch Menschen – angewendet.
Es ist zweifelhaft ob es irgendeinen Sinn in der Sache der Tierrechte oder der Menschenrechte macht, eine Analogie durch den Begriff des „Holokaust“ aufzeigen zu wollen. Denn dieser Versuch der Gleichsetzung trägt weder zu einer weitergreifenden Erfassung der Problematik nichtmenschlicher Tiere in einer homozentrischen Welt bei, noch kann er wirklich die Ursache von Greueltaten die Menschen an Menschen begehen oder begangen haben klären.

Ich glaube, dass solange keine Übereinkunft in der Bezeichnung des Komplexes menschlicher Gewalt gegen nichtmenschliche Tiere besteht, man begrifflich weiterkommen könnte, indem man die Unbeschrieblichkeit und die Unfassbarkeit erstmal bestehen lässt. Man hat für das, was wir heute „Tiertötung“ und „Tiermord“ nennen, noch keinen ausreichenden Begriffsrahmen geschaffen und damit auch keinen eigenen umschreibenden Begriff zur Hand.

Abschließend: Es geht in diesem Text nicht darum, durch die Aufwertung oder vielleicht eher anders Bewertung der Tierproblematik, die Würde des Menschen in irgendeiner Weise in Frage stellen zu wollen. Sondern es geht darum, dass dem Problem der Gewalt gegenüber nichtmenschlichen Tieren in seinem eigenen Recht Aufmerksamkeit erteilt werden muss.

(1) Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York: Basic Books, 1974, S. 36.
(2) Dieser Punkt würde so etwas wie ein Interspezies-Sozialverhalten anbelangen, das aber abgesehen von einigen wenigen Beispielen in der Tierrechtsliteratur bislang wenig Interesse gefunden hat.
(3) In Großbritannien führten Diskussion über die psychologische oder kriminelle Einstufung von ‚personality disorders’ vor forensischem Hintergrund zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Einstufung nicht-therapierbarer Persönlichkeitsstörungen für die Rechtsprechung ein nicht klar addressierbarer Problemfall bleibt.

Das Acrylbild oben stammt von Farangis Yegane http://crownofthecreation.farangis.de/birds.one. Dieser Text wurde von Gita Yegane Arani-May verfasst und ist im Veganswines Reader 08 erschienen.

Dieser Text als PDF (öffnet sich in einem neuen Fenster)

Aus dem Vegan*Swines Reader IV (2012): Der Mythos der „humanen“ Art der Ausbeutung und Tötung von Tieren

Posted on by PalangL

Der Mythos der „humanen“ Art der Ausbeutung und Tötung von Tieren

Diese Informationen basiert auf Erfahrungswerten von Tierrettungs- bzw. schutzhöfen und den Recherchen bekannter Tierrechts- bzw. schutzorganisationen. Die Angaben beziehen sich auf die Realität in westeuropäischen und US-amerikanischen Agrarbetrieben.

Eine „humane“ Umgehensweise sollte eigentlich bedeuten, mit Respekt und Einfühlungsvermögen mit den Lebewesen umzugehen, die auf unsere Hilfe angewiesen sind. Es ist egal, ob es dabei um Menschen oder um Tiere geht. Das, was wir genau unter „humanen“, also menschlichen Werten verstehen, läßt darauf zurückschließen, auf welchem Level sich der gegenwärtige Aufgeklärtheitsstatus unserer Kultur befindet.

Würden wir die gleichen Methoden, die wir in der Aufzucht, Versorgung, und Tötung von Farmtieren praktizieren, auf unsere Haustiere anwenden, dann wäre das gesetzeswidrig und jeder normale Mensch würde so eine Behandlungsweise von Tieren als erschreckend und grausam empfinden … diesen Text als PDF lesen / downloaden (Link öffnet sich in einem neuen Fenster)

Three questions I would like to ask any true animal advocate

Posted on by PalangL

Why we eat “farm animals”, and why we let our “pets” be mass euthanized?

http://www.carnism.com < = ? = > http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org

Why do we think we are animal lovers, when we don’t take the sides of nonhuman animals consistently?

my two cents > https://simorgh.de/niceswine/tag/homocentrism

An Animal Rights revolution, acknowledging a new open view onto the animal kingdom or sticking with the biologistic instinct paradigm.

Why we think “infighting” is bad, when it’s only part of any democratic process?

The recent “infighting” debate between proponents of the “welfarist” and the “abolitionist” view (and the shades of gray inbetween them) shows us just how important allowing pluralist views is for the debate and the practice in our shared goal to help, support, rescue, defend … nonhuman animals .

Yet also we can see how important it is to separate between: priorities for advancing causes and (what I’d call) agenda talk.

Both sides see themselves as being more realistic about the right way in which to approach the general public. Since tragically the general public are still more or less analphabetic as what regards any consciousness of how to bring our animal cospecies constructively (in a life-affirming way) into the political arena of a democracy in crisis ( – the state we are obviously in – but this is a chance, when we take a deep look at the causes for the democratic crisis!).

Animal welfare and animal rights will have to merge into a concept, I believe, that should be wider than an exclusionary sum. The main points to rethink are, I think:

A stronger differentiation in the argumentation is needed often. For instance: what are the goals of welfare? I don’t want to sound funny, but do you still remember the axioms of the set theory? Where do both sides meet, on which grounds, and where do they totally exclude each other … ?

Realistically, how much is “strategy” and how much is “justice” in welfarism: It might be strategically mostly the main option to work on phasing out the speciesist realities and atrocities, but it’s not just. So we got both aspects at one instance, the aspect of being only “strategic”, the slow progress of welfarism – if it has the goal of eliminating speciesism in the end, and the “just” way of abolishing the enslavement of nonhuman animals for human purposes overall, at the other hand.

Goals should be revealed openly if they don’t meet the optimal ends for nonhuman animals in a direct way, such as is the case in welfarism: a tough question, because obviously to do the optimal for animals, we have to do the optimal for nature and humans too, because everything is interwoven on the different layers (and with the optimal for humans being a current issue of open debate or mute silence in our societies.)

Political strategies in the animal rights and the animal welfare movement should be explained, rather than to draw nice images of either the future (abolitionist tendency somehow) or the present (welfarist claims of success where the goal is forgotten over that): why do we deal with nonvegans and non animal advocates the way we do, why do we talk to them the way we talk to them, how do we see the public as so hard to approach on a more honest and critical level?

We do have to have infights, indirectly and partly, cos of our wrangle about the right tone to meet the “general public” … maybe

Why can’t we talk openly towards each other and the other people in society?

Finally: If we would discuss everything more critical and to a deeper level, we would be able to dig our way through ages of history in which we have learned and maybe wanted to distance ourselves from animals and nature.

 

Vegan speciesism

Posted on by PalangL

Vegans and anti-speciesists who are acting as subconscious speciesists

I recently came across a campaign movie clip made by an Austrian vegan and anti-speciesist group called http://united-creatures.com/ . They said they wanted to show the live of two sibling pigs, one who lives more or less freely and more or less free from harm – as far as one could tell, and one who had to stay in the farm and he is eventually being killed there. The group United Creatures documents everything, for the purpose of making people aware and educating people about speciesism : http://united-creatures.com/thema/pig-vision/ .

They say they would not want to show gory pictures that would have a shock effect on the viewer. Still, It’s just what they are doing, and the entire project is set up so that you have some animal rights activists who are to a large extent passively, and one could say voyeuristically, only following a situation to document it for “educational purposes” … instead of buying the other animal out too.

A life becomes the subject of being a means to an end, for the purposes of informing the public about what goes on behind the walls of farms and slaughterhouses. Society already knows what goes on behind these walls. The community of animal advocates is resistant towards this fact and doesn’t seem to recognize how speciesism works.

Either that, or the AR community (with it’s big leading organizations who frame the dialectic) wants to keep imagining that we are all still living back in the 80ies where it only started yet that documentations about slaughterhouses were made more widely public.  Nonetheless even at that time speciesism had it’s own ways of communicating its defamatory language about how to best degrade nonhuman animals in our homocentric societies.

As for today, just look at the contemporary arts scene for instance … People like those from the group ‘United Creatures’ must be aware of “artists” such as the famous Austrian speciesist Herman Nitsch who makes orgies in which a selected group of people takes part in the dismemberment and slaughter process of a nonhuman animal.

Animal activists such as the group ‘United Creatures’ must have met conscious speciesism also in the mindset of hunters, butcher shops, barbecue freaks, leather fetishists, snuff videos, speciesist “jokes”, anti ar+vegan comments on the internet … and what have you. Still, activists pretend nobody knows about the atrocities that are being done to animals, so we should keep showing how animals are being murdered – for the purpose of printing yet another pamphlet.

A nonhuman animal is not a means to an end. Animal rights activist should sense that there is a threshold, and it’s bad enough that theiy themselves keep crossing a line that they should be aware of: the line of objectification that has long been wiped out by our speciesist societies.

Instead of showing over and over again how animals are being degraded and murdered, for educational or documentary purposes, animal activists should make the mechanisms of speciesism more aware I believe, and what speciesism exactly is, how is psychologically and ideologically works.

 

Common sense as a basis for morality in Animal Rights

Posted on by PalangL

Use your sense of justice, when you judge nonhuman animals, use your common sense, when you judge animals.

When natural scientist make findings about how an animal brain works, how animal psychology works, cognition, consciousness, it means they will do 1. invasive research at some point, and 2. they will be using parameters that are strictly homoncentric, meaning the frame of reference they apply moves only within a “human” framework of “objectivity”.

A real Animal Rights revolution would require people to step back from human parameters. A real Animal Rights revolution would mean we as humans are able to face nonhuman animals on the level where we allow them to be different but still respect their untouchable integrity in this natural world that we all live in and are born into.

When we want to give nonhuman animals our definitions, we should as Animal Rights people make sure we don’t impose a worldview onto them and their concerns, that is not theirs (and thus not in THEIR interest). If we can’t accept that animals have their own views of the world, then we deny them real and autonomous subjectivity, and then we deny them personhood in a sense that we should respect.

We don’t need scientific proof and scientific arguments, what we need is to learn to accept common sense as a basis for morality and moral judgment in Animal Rights issues as much as we accept our basic common sense to be enough when we talk about each other or internal human concerns.

 

Vegan for justice

Posted on by PalangL

Not the plain awareness that “eating meat is wrong”, but a growing sense of justice makes veganism so attractive to people I think.

Ok this is a fine line, but I believe what makes people want to turn vegan now, is not that “by chances” they have been informed about the atrocities going on in farms and slaughterhouses and that more or less right away turns them into vegetarians and/or vegans. I think it’s rather the growing sense of justice as far as nonhuman animals are concerned and the human relationship towards them, that makes people get the “click” of becoming a vegan.

People find it easier to stand for what they feel and think today, in regards to nonhuman animals.

In the past when you thought it was wrong to eat “meat”, etc. the pressure around a person living in a homocentrist society was so strong that someone was confronted with so many more obstacles than the obstacles a persons meets today in most or at least many contexts and places.

The danger of thinking that solely information would almost automatically create a more enlightened and thus hopefully compassionate people all around us, lays in the often overlooked point that many meat eaters and hunters, for example, etc., are acting fully knowing what they are doing and endorsing their fully aware chosen stances publicly wherever they can as individuals “having something to do with the issue” (they feel being asked for their warped views, so much, I think). The same fanaticism about a practiced carnism and speciesism also goes for some people in the field of arts it has to be noted – a professional field that is in much danger of acting on an ideological plane in society anyway and speciesist art is a sad fact that is often being ignored way too much ( speciesism in art : http://www.farangis.de/blog/category/animalistic-issue ).

What I think is important, is that we don’t underestimate the will and the power of the individual person and society overall to foster a sense of justice in each other once the ice is broken that sealed (one could say) “the lips of humanity” in the past.

An e-memorial and about people who simply deny that their harboring speciesist attitudes when you confront them …

Posted on by PalangL

The grave site of Martin Eduard Staudinger, German Animal Rights advocate and anti-vivisectionist. His grave is on the Hauptfriedhof in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He shares a grave site with his grandmother Dorothea Staudinger geb. Behrends.

On a memorial site for the people who lie resting on the Hauptfriedhof his grave is mentioned as:
“146 Grabmal für Martin Eduard Staudinger (1842-1910), Kämpfer gegen die Vivisektion, Gewann C 59” (http://www.bomas.de/buecher/brauchitsch-frankfurt.htm , accessed on the 16.08.12)

The inscription on his tombstone reads:’Im unermüdlichen Kampfe gegen die Vivisektion und für die Rechte der Tiere’ = In the untiresome fight against vivisection and for the rights of animals. (http://ar-civet-cat.blogspot.de/2010/07/martin-eduard-staudinger-1842-1910.html)

People that pretend not to know what speciesism is, and how to deal with them?

Honestly I don’t know yet, I am still trying to find ways … . Have you encountered that problem too: you make a somewhat halfwitted and half-conscious speciesist aware about the fact that you disagree with them making speciesist remarks (when you are around or not directly around on social networks maybe. People like to do it more so when an AR person is somewhere close by, so that a direct verbal argument can start, or so that they can try to ridicule your stance face to face and in public)?

Telling someone that you are against speciesism can be dealt with by a speciesist with a form of denial as a “response”, in which the person just assumes not to know what you’re talking about. Partly anybody is aware of speciesism, partly not. A speciesist is likely (at least in these days still) not fully aware of this -ism that humans direct against the nonhuman animal world (that is, speciesism!). A person might be aware about the conscious degradation of nonhuman animals, but might not consider that as a form of oppression that he or she should take politically serious in a considerate form. So we deal with an ethical blindness in many speciesists.

So how can one address them?

Overall it can be reasonable in the most cases to go ahead and still tell someone what you roughly think about the human-nonhuman relation in our societies in general. On the other hand, when you feel that informing that person won’t lead to any useful effect for the cause, you can just try to ignore their ignorance (!) and just “stand for what you stand” – let them know you are a vegan anti-speciesist, but not argue with them -, because your stance (in thought an action) will have all kinds of effects on your environment anyway.

I’m trying both these approaches anyway.

Manuchehr Jamali and Gita Yegane Arani-May, Mithraic backgrounds and its Iranian roots: What’s the symbolism of the bull’s raised tail with the three ears of grain? Why do ears of grain grow out of the raised bull’s tail?

Posted on by PalangL

Find more info on: Mithras in the Taunus (Edition Farangis)

This text can be downloaded as a PDF, if you click here: Mithraic backgrounds

Manuchehr Jamali and Gita Yegane Arani-May

Mithraic backgrounds and their Iranian roots:

What’s the symbolism of the bull’s raised tail with the three ears of grain?

Why do ears of grain grow out of the raised bull’s tail?

No bull raises his tail straight up, nor does one or three ears of grain grow at the tip of any bull’s tail. What type of worldview do we see in this symbolism that merges animal with plant life? The image of the “ear of grain” and the early philosophical conceptions tied to this symbol, held a central meaning in the early Iranian civilisation and their religious ideas. A basic concept they held was represented in their equation of growth (as pertaining to plants) and birth (in animal life).

The Persian word Tokhm means “plant seed” and “sperm”. Kashtan, “the sowing out of plants” also means to “impregnate”. The term Tokhm (seed) was equated with the term ‘fire’. Though meant was not the burning fire, rather: the seed would contain a nonburning fire (a warmth = the creative dynamic and Mithra = Love) hidden in its depth inside. ‘Life’ (Djaan = Gi = Gaya = Gi + Yaan) itself was also called Tokhme Atesh = “Fireseed”.

The term waksh “to grow” refers both to the ‘growth’ and to the ‘blazing fire’ both equally. The central deity of the early Iranians was symbolized in the image of an array of flammable cubes (or firelighters), and “the ear of grain” – the image that mainly depicted this deity – was also seen as equal with “fire cubes” in an oven.

***

Each “seed” (the ‘fire-of-life’ of each plant life, animal life and human life: “Atashe Jaan”) holds within itself a hidden fire, through which a drive to raise itself and the desire to give itself an outer appearance and shape is triggered – from the darkness within to the outer visibility.

Each seed that falls down onto the soil raises itself, pushes upwards by a means of such a “wind” (air = breath = fire-creating-agent = ‘that, what sets something ablaze’ = Azar Forouz) of a motivated movement and lifts and raises itself (it thus “becomes”). Something “is” when it raises itself. The hidden fire-of-life itself though, comes into being through the wind = Waaz = Waay.

***

The Iranian deity had also carried the title Waaye beh = “good wind” and Naaye beh = “good flute”. The good flute is the source of the wind of life, the breath of life and the fire of life. The good wind, which is at the same time a melody or music, was identified with the good flute, which again also carried the title of “the virgin”.

Trumpets and the other big musical wind instruments which were used by the ancient Iranians when they went to war, were called Gaw dum = “cow’s tail”. A good horse was also called a “bamboo-“ or “reed’s-“ tail (Khayzaran dum = literally “bamboo tail”).

The horse, Asb in Persian, is called Bad-e Djaan = “wind of life” in the classical Iranian literature. Bad is the wind = Waay, and Waay again is the “Naaye Be” (the good flute). The term Bad-e Djaan discloses the relation of the “bamboo tail” with a creative feature: the wind, Bad, is “Waaye Be” and at the same time its also the title of the Iranian deitiy. The tail stood for the place of resurrection (the re-creation).

But what does the tail of a cattle has to do with a trumpet? The word Dum = “tail” did not only mean “end” in the sense of a point closing or that it ends something, it also meant the location where a re-surrection or re-creation takes place. Dombale means both “tail” and also, “dombale chizi raftan” means to pursue something. The word dombale also means ‘continuation’ in the sense of a spearhead.

The feathers of the peacock were walled Dume Tavoos = “tail of the peacock”. The peacock was considered to be the bird of resurrection and renewal (Frash-Murw) because of his colourful tail.

In the Persian language wheat is called Gan-Dum = Gund-Dum which means as much as “life at its tail” oder “ear (Gund) at its tip” and it stood as a symbol of resurrection. Since often there is a bunch of hair at the end of an animal’s tail and since a bird’s tail has a fan of feathers and since hair held a special and important meaning in this ancient world view, we can understand this type of equation so far.

In the Pahlavi texts hair is often identified with plants, but “hair” (Muy = Mu = Giss) originally carried the connotation of “flute” in the Persian language. The word “music” itself, that consists of the morphemes Mu-Se (Muse = Musi) means “three flutes” = “flute” – from this context an explanation can be seen as of how the word “music” originated.

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The bird (Mare-gha = Tan-guria) stands as the embodiment of the source of the worlds (self-) renewal, and the earth goddess herself, who is called Gawe Barmaye (cow of Barmayun) in the Shahnameh myth, is there described as the one “with a (male) peacocks hair as her tail”.

The tail was also depicted as fire, as a flame and as an ear of grain. The word Dum = “tail” does mean in Persian also fire and flame.

***

The ear of grain, which consists of connected grains or seeds, has also been equated with lightable fire cubes in the Iranian mythology. The deity who is the source of all being (existence) and who is the first element of all life = Artha, is the goddess of fire and seeds (“fireseeds”). All primordial elements of living existence are understood as fireseeds, through an understood equation of “fire” and “seed”. So the ear of grain was depicted as a flame or as a burning torch. The word Soak, that also means ear of wheat, does similarly carry the meaning ”fireflame”.

Within this context we can also find the reason why Cautes = Rashn, and Cautopates = Suroush – Rashn and Soroush mythologically parallel the figures of Cautes and Cautopates in mithraism in their role and function – carry a torch in their hand, and why Soroush (Cautopates) in the Shahnameh epic has hair that grows so long that it reaches down to the ground. The hair on the head where equated with the symbol of three ears of grain.

Soroush and Rashn were both fire-lighteners, they where those who would set the fire ablaze. The lighting of the fire represented the rebirth and the newly created (German: Neuschöpfung). The term of “lighting a fire” (Azar Forouz) meant “bringing something into life” and “rebirth”.

Soroush, Rashn and Artha were for this reason all called with the attribute name Kavat: the one, who opens something anew”. The goddess Artha had been called Kavat in the Region of Sijistan (Sistan). In Persian literature Kavat is the “doorsill”. The deity Artha is being symbolized by the 1. month of the year (Farvardin). She opens the year. The doorsill (Kavat) represents the idea of the initiation and opening of that what is new. Cautes and Cautopates open the gate to the day, they stand for the sill between night and day.

Rashn and Soroush carry like midwifes the Sunseeds, which cyclically comes into being at every midnight, and they help this seedling to be born. Cautes (Caut-es) is similar to the word Kavat, which, as we already mentioned, means the one who starts, who creates new, opens something anew and threshhold. Cautopates (Caut-o-pat-es) means the partner (the other half of a pair or twin) and he is the coworker of Cautes. These two have the task of bringing about the rebirth or the resurrection (Frashgart = the ‘becoming afresh’). In a relief from Carnuntum (Austria) Cautes is depicted with a raised torch (flame) in his right hand and an ear of grain in his left.

The Iranian deity was called Arta-Xusht, “Artha the ear”

The central deity in ancient Iran was depicted as an ear of grain. Her seeds or fireseeds (Artha = Axv = Praan = Fran) were the first elements of all life on earth. These fireseeds are in every body (Tan, which also means womb and fireplace or oven) safely kept and one, with the body itself. This was seen as the love (Mithras = Maetha) and unification of the divine being with the worldly matter.

The creation (A-fri-dan) was a turning-into-all-that-lives (fri = love) and a binding-with-everything. Maetha, from which the word Mithra later derived, meant 1. pair and 2. unification.

This deity was also called Artha-vahisht, And-o-hesht and Artkusht. And means “seed” in Sanskrit. Artha and Ard were the “primordial element” of all that lives, all living entities. The word heshtan (va-hesthan) and vaheshtan meant “planting the seeds into the soil” or also the sexual conception in the womb. The term Va-hisht is translated as “the best” by the Zoroastrians and understood as “yonder paradise”. Behesht, which has an equal meaning as the word Vahisht, means in Persian until today “paradise”.

The image or the concept of the “ear” (of grain) stood on one hand for 1. the connection and the unification of all existence (of all being), and of all that lives (love), and 2. on the other hand it stood for the richness in all the existent variations, in all manifoldness, in the distinctness of things. The image of the ear of grain does not depict the repetition of similar parts; the grains, that are the seeds, were seen as the very first element of all the different, separate, diverse, heterogeneous beings.

The ear didn’t have any identical grains, but was the initial point for diversity. The deity was the origin of all differences and all colours. The seeds of the god (Artha) turned or morphed in the process of creation into all the manifold forms and revealed itself in diverseness. The initial condition (Tokhm means in its form “Tum” also “darkness”) itself though stayed dark, ungraspable and invisible. That means that when the deity became visible, it only became visible in plurality or manifoldness. Her invisibleness was the condition of the darkness. Such an “ear” (of grain) this god had been.

***

The quality of the being (German: Wesen) or nature of this deity, which laid equally in each of her seeds, consisted of the compound of two principles or powers, energies. The image of the god or its concept was therefore also called “Hu-vis = good two-ness (however, not a duality in the sense of a dichotomy)”.

On one hand the deity was an ear of grain (as in the image of the connected seed “the compounded fire”) and on the other hand she was the water of life (all liquids, the essence of the plants and the blood or the milk of the nonhuman animals and humans, were called “water” = Ape = Awe). Because of the interconnected or compounded ‘two-ness’ the nature of the deity was understood as a trinity that was depicted in different forms like the threefoiledness, the threeseededness, the thee-eyedness, the three-feetedness, consisting of three ears of grain, three flutes, etc.

The sort of a bondedness (German: Gebundenheit) of two feet or of a pair of wings or also that of how water and seed or the body and the fire of life are connected, was a binding through an “invisible third”. This form of a bond was that, what was understood as “Mithras”, Maetha = pair and unification.

The word “ear (of grain)” Xushe (Xushu = Ukushu) means in Sogdian the number six. The contemporary word “six”: Shesh in Persian, sets itself together of She + She = Se + Se = 3 +3. The image and the symbolism of the “Khushe” itself is that of three pairs = 3 x 2. Art-xusht is an ear that carries three pair of seeds. The “ear” (of grain) yet was also equated with the star cluster of the Pleiades, which again were also called “sixling” in Persian.

The reason why Mithras cuts the vein of the primeval bull with a short sword can be explained in the following way: three leafs grow from the blood that streams out of the vein. In the Iranian myth in the book Bundashishn the vein and the blood both (together) are identified with the deity Arthakhusht. This means the veins were identified with this deity and the main artery, that comes from the heart and divides into two parts, was called “Aorta” after her. The deity Artha was also called Urt (Urt-vahisht).

***

The word which later only remained to be Xushe = “ear (of grain)” originally consisted of Axv + she (Axv + 3) and was originally the word Axushe = Ukhushe. This word meant “three primordial seeds”. Axu is the “primordial element of being”. It is the basic element of existence and of life, and it is also the “the state of being itself” (“self”). The suffix She correlates to to “Se”, that is, the number three. Akhushe is the (threefold) primordial element consisting of three parts in the Persian myth – the primordial seed (Axv = Xva = Uva).

The Axv makes up the center of the quintuple substance of life of the human being. The human entity consists of the five elements: 1. Axv + 2. Buy + 3. Urva + 4. Daena + 5. Fravashi, and from the Avx four powers develop (four wings, four leafs).

***

Art-khusht (Artha, the ear) is seen in the sky as the Pleiades, which are called Khushe Parvin, and also Palm, Sheshak, Pirou, etc. in the Persian languages and Sorayya ( = Thriyya = 3) in Arabic. From this ear (the Xushe Parvin = the Pleiades) at the firmament, the six parts of the earthly creation evolve: 1. the cloudy sky, 2. the water, 3 soil, the earth, 4. the flora, 5. the fauna (especially also the Gaospenta = the “beneficent cow”, which is equal in meaning to the “small domestic animals”), and 6. the world of the human beings. It was also for this reason why the Iranians counted six seasons, which corresponded with this evolutionary circle.

The Pleiades were seen as six seedlings or seeds that would come together in a “womb”, which was the half moon. Following the ancient conceptualization, the full moon set itself together from the Pleiades and the half moon. The full moon showed the state of their unification. Pleiades and half moon make up a pair that represented the “seeds and the womb” and they were understood as the creative beginning. From the coming together of these two celestial parts the world was born.

The pairing of the half moon with the Pleiades was called Vinas (Ghunas), which originally meant “love” and stood for the primordial, the initial love. In the Zoroastrian theology the change from the term Vinas to Gonah, the sin, namely the primordial sin, came about. This term also correlates to the Arabic Jonah = sin.

***

The half moon, the celestial womb, played the role of a sort of a garden, since there all seedlings of live would sprout (the primordial cow, that comes into being in the half moon, in the Mithras cult). Then all the seedlings are laid (distributed, sewn, kashtan) into the Tan = the body, namely the bodies of all earthly (sentient) living beings and plant bodies. The body is equal in its meaning and function with the “womb”. In the Kurdish language the moon is also called Mang, this is the same name the mythological earth-cow is called. Both, moon and earth-cow stood identically with the “ear (of grain)” (Khushe Parvin, the Pleiades). According to the Zoroastrian text sources, different plants grow from the different organs of the primordial cow.

As we already mentioned the nature of the “Art-khusht” was the connected or bound two-ness. This also implied that the male and the female belonged together (primordial cow = cow and bull) and along with that stood the symbolism of the unification of the seed with the womb. The title for an honorary man was the Khajeh (Khava-ye) over centuries in Persia, and it literally meant hermaphrodite. Also the current day honorific title Djenab has just that meaning. The great Iranian heroes of the Shahnameh: Rostam, was called Tahm-tan (Tokhm-tan = seed-womb), which also entails the meaning hermaphrodite. The compounded two-ness (trinity) had the sense of being the creative agent (of the movement, the light, the measure, the happiness).

***

The difference between the Zoroastrian and the Mithraic primeval bull is the following:

The Zoroastrian primeval bull is fatally injured by Angra Mainyu (Ahriman). The goal of Ahriman is to destroy life on earth. The “Artha”-Seeds though are always victorious (Pirooz), since they have the power to constantly renew themselves on their own. So all efforts by Angra Mainyu are in vain. From all the parts of the cow (which is set as equal with Parvins ear (of grain) / پروين خوشه ), new growth develops from the absorption of the water that runs in the river flowing next to the river Veh Daiti where the bull lies. The primeval bull experiences a new “becoming afresh” = Frashgart.

In Mithraism Mithras is the creator with his dagger, by cutting the vein of the primeval bull. Here the depiction of the river is missing. In place of the process of a resurrection stands the act of the cutting of the live giving veins of the all-live (All-Leben) through the god with his short sword. With the cut in the veins of blood, Mithras effectuates the putative rebirth of live (Frashgart). Water can’t be cut up or dismembered, but the veins, through which the blood is running – the blood which was also understood as a “river” – could be severed.

The vein was identical with the deity Artha. Through the sacrifice the renewal takes place in Mithraism, and with the brutal disconnection of the vein of life, the idea of the contract (Mitre) takes over the place of love (Mehr).

The seeds and the unification of the seeds with the water represented love, the contract though came about through severance.

Copyright © 2012 Edition Farangis. All rights reserved. www.farangis.de

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The German text is accessible here: http://www.irankulturpolitik.com/die_aehrenkrone.

In this context I would also like to cordially invite you to visit our new 2 sites:

For our English readers: Mithras in the Taunus – Mithras at the Saalburg

and for our German readers: Neu-Mithraismus bei Mithraeum.de

Neo-vegan perspectives – 1 : Why Animal Rights can’t be treated as secondary to Human Rights

Posted on by PalangL

Images: Acrylic paintings on canvas by Farangis Yegane : view “OUR OBSERVER“

Neo-vegan perspectives – 1
Why Animal Rights can’t be treated as secondary to Human Rights

Let’s assume we can’t overcome human conflicts, and let’s assume we do not want to consider animal rights and environmental issues as ways in which we could also find fundamentally better approaches to conflict solution, because there doesn’t really exist an openness in the viewpoints of the majority to allow new or different perspectives on what’s to be considered as relevant and ‘sense-possessing’.

Animal Rights, even if not considered as touching a sphere of meaningful phenomena, is objectively not a secondary concern.

This is so, since the fact that human persons relegate animal individuals into “irrelevance”, as a sector created for the nature-animal complex, doesn’t hold any factual account for the leakage we can call an obvious one if we look at:

A) the grade of destruction aggravated by any forms of speciesism (and homocentrism respectively)

And B) the essential bond of the human notion of ideal justice in the moral practice lived by societies (idealism) with the natural and the animal world; and the unknown factors reciprocal of nature and animals overall as they display themselves back to human society (the other intelligence – designed by life basically).